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1.8.5-Kingedmundsroyalmurder
Brick!club chapter 5: of narrative voice, symbolism, and humanity Okay fine. We’re going to talk about narrative voice here. In particular we’re going to talk about the way Hugo keeps saying that he doesn’t know parts of Valjean’s story. This has been a recurring theme in all the Valjean parts, usually directly referenced. I won’t go through and pull all the examples from previous chapters, but one that sticks out clearly in my mind is at the very end of the Petit-Gervais chapter: Combien d’heures pleura-t-il ainsi? que fit-il après avoir pleuré? où alla-t-il? on ne l’a jamais su. Il paraît seulement avéré que, dans cette même nuit, le voiturier qui faisait à cette époque le service de Grenoble et qui arrivait à Digne vers trois heures du matin, vit en traversant la rue de l’évêché un homme dans l’attitude de la prière, à genoux sur le pavé, dans l’ombre, devant la porte de monseigneur Bienvenu. How many hours did he cry thus? What did he do after having cried? Where did he go? No one ever knew. The only thing known is that, during that same night, the driver who in that time drove the route from Grenoble and arrived in Digne around three in the morning saw as he crossed the Bishop’s street a man in the attitude of prayer, kneeling on the pave stones, in the shadows, in front of Monseigneur Bienvenu’s door. It’s got the same structure as the missing parts in this chapter, namely that Hugo tells us that it is impossible to know and then offers a theory. Because he is the author we accept his theories as truth, but there’s no reason why they have to be. That man doesn’t have to be Jean Valjean. In this chapter, Valjean doesn’t have to be wearing the shirt of the man who died. Hugo has denied his omniscience and thus we as the reader are free to disagree with any of his conclusions. We’ve all been doing that already in various places (the general outcry over the Bishop’s blindness as heaven springs to mind, as does my personal refusal to buy Valjean’s deep seeded hatred of everything) but this feels like he’s giving us permission. But anyway. The first mention of the unknown in this chapter is when he admits that no one knows how Valjean got into his building without being detected. He offers no theories for this one apart from saying that he did have a master key but it was almost certainly taken from him in jail. The other one is about where he got his shirt, which does have a theory to go with it. We also get a kind of half unknown with the bread, since Hugo leaves it at a “he was probably eating the prison’s black bread” and the supplements that with a detail from the investigation instead of just employing authorial power and telling us outright. None of these are huge plot points and our not knowing those details doesn’t change anything in our understanding of the story. But Hugo does everything for a reason and he’s been very definite in including himself in the story as a not always reliable narrator. For Valjean in particular he’s been floundering, like I said, though there were parts of the Bishop’s book where he admitted to not knowing as well. I don’t think I have any concrete theories on what Hugo is trying to do here. Part of it is him cementing his position as a character within his own narrative, but he is deliberately choosing these moments to leave vague. We contrast those to the moments he describes in great detail like the town’s reaction (which comes complete with narrative condemnation and moralizing) and his mentions of how both Sister Simplice and the landlady told the story several times in years to come. (Baptistine also told the story of the night Valjean stayed with them repeatedly. Hugo is only a limited narrator when he wants to be.) I’m tempted to tie it to Valjean’s identity issues but I’m not sure that theory holds water. Anyone wanna talk about this with me and help me sort out my thoughts? Moving on, let’s talk about Sister Simplice! Sister Simplice is awesome in this chapter. She has become purely human and in doing so has been transfigured and raised higher to heaven. Basically she leveled up in holiness by embracing her humanity. There’s the lying, obviously, but she also reads Valjean’s note, when before she only read the bible, and her eyes are red, when before every part of her had been white. "Les violences de la destinée ont cela de particulier que, si perfectionnés ou si refroidis que nous soyons, elles nous tirent du fond des entrailles la nature humaine et la forcent de reparaître au dehors" (The violences of destiny have this peculiarity that, however perfected or however cold we are, they pull human nature from the depths of our entrails and force it to reappear outside.) People have talked already about how the highest form of idealism in Hugo’s world is knowing when to violate those ideals. Sister Simplice has been forced by circumstance to return to her humanity slowly at first, by loving Fantine, and then more and more quickly until it culminates here. Hugo is glorifying love, basically, and in the process outlining what he considers the most important human quality. (This is love in the broadest sense, by the way, not the very narrow romantic sense that we tend to associate with the word today.) Javert is deceived here because he cannot conceive of a situation in which Sister Simplice would go against her vows and her ideals and lie. This is not his fault; until that evening Sister Simplice could not conceive of a situation in which she would go against her vows and her ideals. She has no doubt been through just as much of an inner earthquake as Valjean and Javert, but she’s not a viewpoint character so we don’t get to see it. (Anyone more familiar with religion wanna fic it? I would really love to read her thought process.) And Fantine is buried in a common grave. Even the narrator can’t decide if this is a good thing or not. On the one hand she deserves better and Valjean asked for better, but on the other hand God doesn’t care where you’re buried and now more of Valjean’s money is going to the living poor. We are left to decide for ourselves whether the vicar did the right thing. Like most everyone else in this book he’s not evil, he’s not malicious, he’s just doing what he thinks is right. We’re directly told that he thought he was doing the right thing. We, who have cried with Fantine for the past however many livres, are upset by this callous treatment, but he has no way to know and no real reason to care, not when he has enough living poor to help and an influx of funds to do it with. And God can find her anyway, which seems to imply that she will indeed be going to Heaven, suffering having washed away her transgressions and inner goodness having done the rest. This is paralleled by the reminder that her grave is like her bed: public. Fantine was virtuous despite her final profession and now she is holy despite her burial site. And tomorrow we start Waterloo! Commentary Laissezferre i didn’t connect simplice’s redness of eyes to her not being completely white/inhuman/symbolic anymore. good spot! Doeskin-pantaloons Oh wow, there were so many good things in that post that I never picked up on! Thank you!